BrineCraft
by hghrules
Summary: Unsatisfied with haunting one or two Minecrafters at a time, Herobrine has decided to take his power to a new level. Will Liz, her brother, and their friends be strong enough to push him off the throne? (T for possible violence.)
1. Chapter 1

_Ok, so here's my first minecraft fanfic. Well, no, that was a lie. I'm actually writing a book about minecraft right now, and I think I'm at 123 pages! But this is the first one I'm posting to . HERE IT IS! Don't forget to rate and review._

**Chapter One**

"So what do you think He wants?" I ask my brother.

"Um, hello? Just what every other evil videogame villain wants: TOTAL DOMINATION," John replies in a know-it-all voice.

I roll my eyes. "I can't believe I let you drag me into this," I mutter.

He sticks his tongue out. "You can't blame it all on me, Liz. It's not my fault the computer ate us."

"And please, stop saying the computer ate us! It was more like... being sucked into a vortex. If you tell some potential ally that we were eaten by our computer, they'll never take us seriously."

John again sticks out his tongue. "Can you just, oh, I don't know, stop being such a meany? We're stuck here, we have to deal with it."

I sigh. "OK, fine, how do we stop Him?"

He gasps. "Stop Him! Now? No way! We aren't wearing one inch of armor! We have to play the game."

"Well, how do we play the game?"

He gapes at me. "You- you don't know how to play Minecraft?"

I shrug.

"YOU POOR, MALNOURISHED BEING!" he yells.

"Do you even know what that means?"

"Of course I do! If you don't play enough minecraft, you'll _die!_ Do you really want to die, Liz? Know what? We're real lucky we got sucked into a videogame, because if we hadn't you might have died from lack of videogames!"

I roll my eyes again. "Will you just tell me how to play?"

"OK, here's how it works. When you punch the tree, a little block of wood pops out."

I raise my eyebrows inquisitively. "Seriously? Doesn't it hurt?"

"Not at all! This is minecraft, sis, why would it hurt to punch wood? Anyways, you don't have to grab the wood, it will just float into your backpack."

"The one that's glued to my back?"

"Mmhmm, that one. Your backpack has a certain amount of slots, and in most cases, 64 of the same block fill up a slot. You also have a hot bar, which is basically like your pocket. That way you can easily access some of your stuff."

"Right. OK, let me try this," I say, walking over to a nearby tree. I hit the middle of the tree once. It cracks a little, but as soon as I stop hitting it mends itself. "What?"

John seems exasperated. "You have to _keep_ punching. Duh."

I nod and turn back to the tree. I punch it for a bit. This would be a great stress reliever. Who needs stress balls? And I have to admit, being sucked into a videogame and told by a traveler that Herobrine brought us here is pretty stressful. I guess I got caught up in punching wood, because the next thing I know, John is shaking me and telling me to leave some wood for him. "Sorry," I mumble.

He shakes his head. "No, you're fine! You're great at this! Except, now I have to teach you how to craft. Usually you use the crafting grid in your backpack, but how do we access?"

I reach into my backpack and pull out a small piece of paper. "Um, this paper has a two by two grid on it..."

"Awesome! Now put some of your wood in one of the slots."

I do. The wood shifts and spins and then the paper sucks up the wood and spits out some wooden planks. "Uh..."

He nods, thoroughly excited. "Perfect! This is like a dream come true! Okay, now we need sticks. Put one wooden plank on top of another on the grid." I try it. The paper spit out a thing piece of wood. John frowns. "Oh, you must be holding the grid sideways. That's a pressure plate. Turn the grid around and try again." I shove the pressure plate in my back pack and place the wood in the grid. 4 sticks pop out.

"Oh, neat," I say. John smiles.

"Oh, wait, we forgot the crafting table! Put a wood block on all the grid spots. Then place the workbench on the ground," he orders. I put the workbench down in the middle of the clearing I made when I punched down all those trees. Then I lean down to use it. "This one's bigger, it's three by three," John says. "I'll make a pick and go mining. And I'll make an axe for you to get more wood."

"_More_ wood?" I ask.

He nods. "You can never have too much wood!"

He digs down into the dirt, making a staircase. I grab the wooden axe he gave me and start chopping down trees. It's not much faster with the axe, but I use it anyway. Again, I get caught up in the wood-punching. Before I know it, the sky grows dark. Something gooey and cold touches my neck. "John," I say, turning around, "don't even- AHHHH!" A slimy green zombie stand before me, decomposed flesh hanging from his hands and face. He reaches toward me again. I duck out of the way and make a wild dash for John's stair case. "JOHN!" I scream. "HELP! WHAT _IS_ THAT?"

He emerges from around a corner. "Is it night time already? He asks calmly. I notice that he's already lit up the wall of his man-made cave with torches. I nod. He takes some cobblestone out of his backpack and closes up the staircase. I can still hear the zombies moaning outside, though, yearning for a taste of our flesh.

"Why- what- what was that?" I stammer.

John turns to the crafting table that he must have brought down here, and I watch as it spits out a stone sword. "Hostile mobs. They spawn at night. Or, in any dark area. You're lucky I found coal for torches." He grins his innocent little boy grin.

"Why didn't you tell me? I would've been watching for the sun's descent!"

He shrugs. "I thought you knew."

"YOU KNEW I WOULDN'T KNOW!"

"Chill out, Liz. In the morning I'll give you a fighting lesson with the mobs that don't die in the daylight. Here, try this sword out for size."

I take the sword from him and sway under its weight. "Kind of heavy.. Just feels unnatural. ... How 'bout an axe?" I ask hesitantly.

John sighs. "Well, it's better than using your bare hands," he mumbles.

XXX

_Hope you liked the first chapter! Don't forget to rate and review! If you've got any ideas, I would love to hear them!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Hey! I got another snow day, so I've got some time on my hands, and I hope to post at least one more chapter before school comes to bore me again. Don't forget to leave a review!_

**Chapter Two**

John mines the cobble for me with a stone pickaxe. Then he switches to his iron sword and follows me into the sunlight. I thank him, an action I would never even consider doing in the real world. But being in that cave made me realize just how dependant I'm going to be on him until I learn the ropes. I can't have him giving me the silent treatment just because I upset him, and I especially can't have him running away from our base. He acts like he's the minecraft master, but I've watched over his shoulder, seen him play. He's certainly not a master when it comes to fighting zombie hordes, and once I had to supress a laugh while watching him fight an enderthingy.

"What do they call those tall, teleporting, black things?" I ask as he finishes off a zombie that hasn't finished burning in the sunlight.

He laughs. "You mean endermen?"

"Don't laugh! Just teach. It's not my fault I don't know the names of every single mob!"

"Liz, it is completely your fault! Anyway, see those two spiders over there?"

My eyes widen. "They're huge!"

He nods. "Yeah. But they only attack when it's dark. Unless you attack them first, in which case my strategy is to wait for them to jump at you and then slice their undersides." He acts out his words with the spider. A piece of curled up string shoots out of its carcass. "Now you try with the axe."

Slowly I approach the other spider. To say I'm nervous would be an understatement. As I'm creeping up on it the spider turns around to face me. It just stares at me with its four red eyes. I slam my axe down on its body. Then I wait for the return attack. As soon as it jumps I stick up my axe to meet it. The spider falls to the ground, dead, and a piece of string pops out.

John comes over to congratulate me. I'm actually sort of proud of myself. There is some sense of accomplisment that comes with killing your first monster. Maybe, if I actually survive this, I will start playing Minecraft. "Good job," John says. "If we can find one more spider, we can make a bow. Actually... We don't have any food. I'll make a fishing pole instead." He heads toward the crafting table in the cave.

A fishing pole. That's probably a good idea. When we were sucked into the game we landed in a birch forest next to the ocean. It's really quite pretty. Of course, it was probably prettier before I chopped down half the trees. But still.

If I look around the trees I can see a jungle, and if I peer out across the ocean I can just barely make out a small island with... Well, _something _on it. I can't tell exactly what it is. I'd like to go check, but I'm afraid that there will be some kind of hostile mob that lives in the water.

When John comes back to the place where we killed the spiders, he's running. "What is it?" I ask, taking out my axe.

John's face is red, and I don't think it's from running. "There's another player here, and I think he could help us, but... Mom said I'm not allowed to talk to other players on the internet."

I roll my eyes. "Do you really think that rule applies in this situation? I'll go talk to her."

"Actually, it's a him," John says as we walk back to the cave, where a kid about my age (15) is waiting patiently. John zips his mouth when we near him.

"Hi," I greet him. "I'm Liz, and this is my brother, John."

"Well, hello, Liz. I'm Zach," he says. "I saw your brother on his way to your cave. He didn't look like a normal player- you know, the kind that aren't actually in the game -because he wasn't all squares and rectangles. And I was sort of hoping you would be willing to team up with me. To go up against... Him. If it's just me, I won't stand a chance. I'm better as part of a team. So... Wanna team?"

I glance at John. He shrugs and refuses to unzip his mouth. "Of course," I answer Zach. "Our dank, smelly cave is your dank, smelly cave. Welcome."

Zach smiles. He seems nice enough. I hope he stays that way. "Do you need anything? We're low on food, but we'll be fishing, soon," I say.

Zach shakes his head. "I've got weapons and a few tools, plus a ton of cobble and some iron. I also have a load of wool, so if you've got wood, we can make beds."

I nod. "Josh, why don't you go make that fishing pole? And here's a stack of wood for beds. And gosh, John, you can talk! He's not a stranger anymore." John nods and starts babbling to Zach as they enter the cave.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I was so afraid that I would have to make the beds. I don't know the grid placement, and I probab ly would have made a fool of myself. I at least know how to place blocks, though, so I start building a small two-story house out of birch wood and planks. As I put the finishing touches on the roof and balcony, (I've always loved the idea of being an architect) I find myself itching to see the sun go down in this blocky world, to watch the first hostile mobs appear. But when the sky begins turning pink, I immediately head to the cave to tell Josh to move the beds and some of the torches over to the house, which faces the ocean and has an AMAZING view on the balcony.

I guess I'm not ready to face the darkness yet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Ah, beautiful morning," I say, rolling off my bed. I hit the wooden floor and wish I'd used some of Zach's wool to install carpet. Yawning, I stand up and comb through my brown hair with my fingers. Today I'm going to find out more about this 'Herobrine' dude. He must be pretty messed up. And- and this is something I hadn't thought about before - He's probably not even the root of the problem. Everyone says that 'He' brought us here, but that just doesn't make sense. Herobrine's a videogame character! And even if the coding that made him was infected with some major virus, well, I can't think of a single virus that would have the power to literally suck your body and mind out of the real world and into a game like Minecraft. Some genius in the real world must have created something to make all this possible.

If that's true, then Herobrine isn't even our final destination in this place.

He's just one more stop on the road to freedom.

I yawn again as I pad down the stairs to the first floor, where John and Zach chose to sleep. I just wanted to be closer to the balcony. When I peek into John's room, he's still asleep. I wouldn't really feel right barging into Zach's room, and he's not in the kitchen or anywhere else in the house, so I'll just assume he's sleeping in, too. Grabbing my axe off the kitchen table, I mentally plan out the day. First I'll kill any left over monsters, for practice and fun. (I'm beginning to like this game.) Then I'll go fishing, because I am STARVING. And hopefully, after that, we can make some kind of boat or something to go over to that island I saw. Then, because we can't stay here forever, I want to look around for some other players. We need more information about Herobrine. Way more than we have.

I close the door gently behind me so as not to wake the boys. Under the shade of a tree near the jungle stands something the size of a player, but it doesn't have any flesh. Just bones. Of course, it's a skeleton. It's holding a bow and pointing it at me. I duck as he lets the arrow fly. I can literally feel the brush of wind that it brings right over my head. Rushing forward and dodging when he shoots, I manage to get close enough to him to slash his ribs off with my axe. He continues shooting though right up until the moment I detach his head. Or, his skull. Two bones and an arrow pop out of the carcass before it disappears. I let the magical vacuum of my backpack suck them in, then peek farther into the jungle. The trees are really tall, and they create quite a bit of shade for mobs to hide in. There's some green thing with four legs and no arms and a permanent frown on his face that spots me. He comes closer and closer to me. When he gets really close he starts making this scary hissing sound, so I hit him hard with the axe. He falls back a bit, but then he starts hissing again, and now he's flashing white and I'm about to give him another whack with the axe when there's a loud noise that makes my ears ring and then the ground is falling and the green thing is gone, and I've fallen through the hole it made right into a little cave.

It's not John's cave. This one looks natural.

This one is dark. To my left is a dead end. To my right is another one of those green things, plus two zombies, a skeleton, and I can hear a spider hissing but can't actually see him. My eyes widen as the ones I can see all come at me at once. I shriek and start digging the dirt around me in a stair case, but it's just too slow. There's no way I'll make it before they get here. So I can either fight, or freak.

Maybe I can do both?

Soon I'm swinging my axe and screaming like crazy, and it seems like every time I kill a mob, another one spawns in the darkness. My axe, which I may or may not have used on wood earlier, breaks pretty quickly, and then I'm just punching them. Zach and John come running, must have heard my screams. Zach sees my predicament and jumps in to help me fight them off. John starts digging out a staircase for us to use. Zach takes the mobs out with an iron hoe. Then we both climb out of the hole, and John plugs it up and marks it with a block of cobble. "How'd you even get in there?" John asks.

"Green, pixely, hissy thing. It blew up the ground, and I fell into the cave," I answer sheepishly.

"A creeper," Zach says. "It's happened to the best of us, don't worry."

I smile. I'm fairly sure John's answer wouldn't have been so forgiving. I would've been hearing about this for a week.

"I'm kind of glad you stumbled upon that cave," Zach continues. "We can go down there and hopefully find a route to diamonds."

"Oh yeah!" John agrees.

I nod. "Can't wait," I say, forcing another smile.

Suddenly a deep voice fills our ears. "Neither can I," it says. "I look forward to the time when you can come visit me in my Fortress. I will be waiting."

XXX

_Sorry for the short-ish chapter! I just thought this would be a good ending for the chapter. Don't forget to leave a review, they mean so much to me!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Hey guys! I've got ANOTHER snow day, so here's chapter four. And, really quickly, I'd like to thank the author of my first review on this fanfic: Lila. (A guest.) As for your idea, I could totally see Liz mistaking Herobrine for a normal player with a weird skin and success in the diamond mines. Now, ON WITH THE FANFIC!_

**Chapter Four**

"What the heck was that?" I ask.

Zach puts his hoe away and take out an iron sword. "Who wants to bet it was Herobrine?"

John shivers. "What else could it be?"

"So... He's not popping out and scaring the everything out of us... so... what do we do?" I ask.

"It was a clue! A clue, a clue, a clue, a clue!" John shouts. "He said He'd be waiting at his fortress! His _fortress_!" John shouts. I shrug, showing him I have no idea what he's getting at. "You know, as in, Nether Fortress?"

Zach nods. "OK, yeah, that makes sense. Sorry."

John shrugs. "Anyway, we need to get to the Nether, which means we need diamonds to mine the obsidian."

"How do you find obsidian?" I ask.

"You put water on lava."

"Couldn't we just put down lava with a bucket, then immediately put down water on top of it? Then we wouldn't need any diamonds."

Zach nods. "She's right. You can just form the Nether Portal like that. No need for a diamond pick."

I smile, feeling extremely proud of myself for coming up with that. "So, can we go then?"

"We still need lava," John points out. "And we still need diamonds for weapons and armor, if not a pick. Do you really think we could go up against Herobrine with iron weapons and hardly any armor and_ win_?"

"How tough can the guy be? We can kill zombies and junk with just a couple hits," I say.

"He's Herobrine! He's not a normal hostile mob!"

"Well, how do you know? Have you gone up against him before? How do you know he doesn't have just as much health as you and I?"

"W- well," John stammers. "He's Herobrine! Everyone's super afraid of him! They say he can fly, and has lightning powers, and can manipulate passive mobs, and-"

"'They'? Who's 'they'?"

"Well, people!"

"Oh, they battled Herobrine?"

John nods triumphantly. "_They_ know what He's capable of."

"How'd they tell you about it?" I ask, smirking.

"They post videos on youtube and pages on the wiki."

"So they survived. Because how could they have told you that if they had gone up against Him and lost? So he must not be too terribly hard to kill."

John is silent.

"You're simply terrified of this dude, and yet you don't have any solid reason to be? You're petrified of going up against Him, but you don't even know what it is you're terrified of! No one has any proof that this dude can shoot lightning at you! No one has any proof that he can turn chickens against you! No! All these wikis you've read, all these videos you've watched, they're lies! Maybe they installed a mod. This isn't a mod. This is just Minecraft. No, this is just life. They know nothing about Him," I say.

John shrugs. "Ya know, when you think about it... anyone could go up against Herobrine, lose and die, then post a video or write a wiki page. They could just respawn. Most people aren't playing in RealLife mode."

I feel stupid. That big speech, me sounding so sure of myself.

I have no idea what I'm doing. "We're playing in RealLife mode, John. We are," Zach puts in. I'm so glad. I feel like a total idiot. Zach knows a thing or two about Minecraft. I mean, so do I, but ONLY a thing or two. He knows what he's doing. "She's right. This isn't the Minecraft you're used to. We don't know if we'll respawn or not. And, there are so many Herobrine mods. Each mod shows Herobrine with different powers. This is real. We don't know what abilities he actually has."

His speech is so much better than mine.

"You're right. You guys are clueless!" The deep voice says.

"Dude, I thought that went away already. It's back?" John asks.

"I am always watching," the voice says. While the boys stand staring into the sky for some creepy being to fly down and attack us, I creep toward a large jungle tree. The voice is louder over here. "I see every move you make," it continues. I peek around the tree. A boy a year or two younger than John is concentrating on spinning knobs on a brown square and speaking into a microphone. "I am... Hero-"

I grab his microphone. "What is wrong with you, dude?" I ask. The microphone picks up my voice and makes it deeper. John and Zach look confused for a second, glance over at me, then burst out laughing. "This is not funny! This little dude tricked us!"

The boy crab walks back a bit. "I- I'm sorry." His voice is fairly high without his little voice-manipulator. "I just- I was just having some fun..."

"Fun? We were prepared to risk our lives in the Nether just to find Herobrine. And it would have been for nothing!"

"I said I was sorry! Really sorry. I don't get to have much fun anymore. My sister makes me mine for diamond. She thinks if we work hard, then someday we'll be able to beat Herobrine and escape this world. I saw you and thought I could take a break. We've been here for a year. Working, non-stop, looking for tools that could stop him. But, after listening to you guys, I'm not sure we'll need the shoes with mega-thick rubber soles, the face masks that we call 'Chicken-Resistors."

I suppress a smile. Chicken-Resistors? Then I realize something. "You said you were mining for diamonds?"

He nods.

"Could we... maybe... possibly... have some?"

"No way! I worked hard for these babies!" he says. "But..."

"Yes?"

"But maybe if... if my sister and I could spend the night in your house... It'll be dark soon... The days here are so short... And my sister never builds big houses. She doesn't even use wood. She builds with dirt so in the morning we can just leave. She wants to 'stay one step ahead of Herobrine.' I wish she would just let us rest for a night. She makes us sleep in shifts, so someone is always alert. If we could stay the night in your house...?"

I glance back at John and Zach, who have stopped laughing and are coming to see the kid. I would ask them, but really I don't care what they think. This poor little kid that reminds me of John back when he didn't get mad when we called him Johnny is definitely welcome in our house. "Of course you can stay. Why don't you go get your sister?"

He nods, smiles, and runs off. The sun has almost completely gone down when Johnny comes running back, pulling on his sister's sleeve to make her go faster. The girl is obviously reluctant. A year in this world would definitely leave me on guard against strangers. She sees us and recoils a bit, (it's hardly even visible, I doubt the boys saw it) then straightens up and walks with fake confidence toward us.

"Hello. I'm Liz," I greet her. The boys introduce themselves and she nods. "And you are?"

"I'm Sarah. This is Joey. What do you want?" she says sharply. I swear her tongue must be made of daggers, the way she spits out her words.

"Sis," Joey says. "I told you! They're gonna let us stay with them for the night!" Then he whispers, "Maybe longer!"

He's just so cute. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like. Hey, John, why don't you go make two extra beds?"

John starts to leave. "Um, actually, I don't think we should," Sarah says. She looks only slightly younger than me, but she's used to being the oldest, making the decisions and protecting herself and her brother.

"Nonsense," I say, smiling warmly at her.

She relaxes just a little. "Well, I suppose we could stay for a bit."

Joey giggles. "Yes! A real house!" Sarah follows Zach inside, but Joey stays behind. "Here's your diamonds," he whispers, pulling a sparkly blue gem out of his backpack.

I shake my head. "No, they're yours. You worked hard for them, remember? But, I do have a question for you. Where is Herobrine staying, really?"

His eyes darken. "Definitely the End. I can just feel it. We have some Ender Pearls. Actually, we already found the End Portal, but Sarah didn't think we were ready to activate it. We marked the spot on our map, though, so we can get back. Then Sarah led us far, far away. She said that place was evil. I think she's right," he says, voice getting quieter and quieter.

"Could we copy your map?" I ask.

"Why?"

"We're going to leave for that portal in a week, whether the boys like it or not. I wanna get out of this place and back to the real world."

He shakes his head. For a second I'm disappointed, but then he says, "You won't need to copy my map. You can have it. I'm going to make sure Sarah lets us stay with you guys. If," he adds quickly, "that's okay with you."

I smile and nod. "So we're a team, now?" he asks.

"Totally."


End file.
